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SUSTAINABILITY REPORT - SOCIAL INVESTMENT |
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Black economic empowerment |
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South African business leaders have often been criticised for
lacking the requisite awareness of the social and political setting
in which they are expected to run profitable businesses. |
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Given the current political vibrancy of South Africa, this
could be viewed as a weakness which, if not addressed, will be
reflected on the bottom line of companies. |
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It is these realities of South Africa's democracy that
have led to Altron’s pioneering work in formulating a home-grown
vision for the group aimed at guiding it through the country's
process of transformation towards the year 2010. |
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It is, furthermore, Altron's belief that the collective
aim of business and political leaders should involve the achievement
of sustainable growth of their businesses and of the economy
as a whole, as well as the redistribution of the proceeds of
that growth across society so as to achieve, amongst other things,
a maximum level of skills and participation in the economy. |
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The group’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) strategy
may, therefore, be seen as a contribution towards an economy
that is based on fair and equal opportunities for all the people
of South Africa. The various BEE transactions and partnerships
concluded during the past year, as well as the sterling progress
made in terms of the stated BEE objectives, clearly reflect
Altron's commitment to the terms of its BEE transformation
vision for the year 2010. |
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This commitment is further evident through the group's
active involvement and support of the development of the ICT
Charter Working Group which is chaired by Adv D Mpofu, Group
Executive Director: Corporate Affairs |
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Altron BEE structure |
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The Altron Transformation Vision 2010, an internal BEE policy
document, which includes a group scorecard with set targets for
Black Economic Empowerment on an annual basis until the year
2010, was officially launched during the year under review. |
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The Vision 2010 document is the first enterprise – charter” to
be published by a company in the ICT sector. The Altron Transformation
Vision 2010 was launched at a gala event in Johannesburg hosted
by the Altron group and attended by captains of industry, the
group's BEE partners, government officials and top
customers. |
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The group's BEE strategy is modelled on the government's
broad-based BEE strategy and is also in alignment with the draft
ICT Charter and the guidelines provided by the charters of the
group's customer base. |
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Under the guidance of Altron's Chief Executive, Robert
Venter, the group's top executive management team took
the lead two years ago to devise a strategy for commitment and
implementation of the principles of BEE throughout the group. |
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Since then, all the companies within the Altron group have
worked together to compile a comprehensive policy manual which
covers each of the broad-based BEE pillars, namely, equity ownership,
management and control, affirmative procurement, skills
development, employment equity, enterprise development and corporate
social investment (CSI). |
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With regard to equity empowerment at ownership level, the group
is focusing on creating anchor partners in its three main group
companies where the following BEE partnerships have been formed: |
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● Powertech with Izingwe through Aberdare Cables;
● Altech with Pamodzi through NamITech and Altech Data;
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● BTG with Kagiso through BTG SA. |
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This structure allows value to be added at an operating level,
especially in terms of the delivery on issues such as employment
equity, skills development and career planning, affirmative
procurement and customer relations. |
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The year under review also saw the commencement of the implementation
of the transformation process throughout the group. The implementation
is being facilitated by the various company transformation committees
under the guidance of the Altron Transformation Committee, chaired
by Adv D Mpofu. This committee spearheads the transformation
process in our group through the BEE practitioners in the various
companies. |
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Considerable progress has been made in terms of the installation
of a measurement system for the group on its BEE performance.
The measurement of performance is one of the biggest challenges
with regards to BEE scorecards and reporting, especially in a
group consisting of more than 150 companies and close to 12 000
employees. |
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During the year under review research into various systems
has led to the selection of an electronic group information system,
named Everest. It is a dedicated system that provides a business
intelligence platform for the capturing, storing and consolidation
of meaningful, updated and auditable information that is required
to populate a scorecard grid. |
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A dedicated BEE steering committee has been formed representing
the various group companies. It is the task of this committee
to compile the functional specifications for the BEE database
which will be the platform for measurement purposes. The system
application will cover the main BEE streams, namely equity ownership,
management and control, affirmative procurement, skills
development, employment equity, enterprise development and CSI.
The objective is to have the first on-line scorecard in
place by the second half of 2005. |
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